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Indonesian intransigence, Bali's suspected H2H2H and Australia's worsening seasonal flu epidemic spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E for the rest of the world. 

"Daddy, when did the pandemic begin?"

"Well,dear, it began in 2007.  You see, the government of Indonesia stopped sending samples of a very, very dangerous flu virus to the rest of the world.  This flu virus was not making too many people sick, but almost everyone who got sick died. And it came straight from birds, so no one had ever seen it before.

"The rest of the world's scientists all needed samples of this bird flu virus, so they could make a vaccine to fight it if it ever changed and made lots of people very, very sick very, very quickly.  But when the people who ran Indonesia refused to share their bird flu samples -- those people kind of stamped their feet and threw a little government tantrum, like you do when you don't get a toy that you want in the store -- well, dear, the rest of the world's scientists could not possibly know what was going on down there. They were in the dark, sort of feeling around, not sure of what was going on.

"Then events started moving way too quickly, and things sort of spun out of control, like you do when you get off that thing in the playground that goes around and around.  First, Australia had a nasty flu epidemic -- not bird flu, more like the flu we get up here in America in the winter.  But it was much, much worse than normal.  It made so many people sick that the Australian government started using special drugs on their people that they had been saving for the day when the flu pandemic would come. 

"Then, in a place in Indonesia called 'Bali,' the bad flu virus changed again.  Instead of people getting sick from birds, they started getting the bird flu from each other.  The worst possible thing was that Bali is a place where Australian people like to fly to go on vacation, like we used to do at Disney World before the pandemic came.  Anyway, those Australians liked to travel all over the island of Bali, and they traveled to that village where those other people all got sick.  And they traveled to other villages where people were getting each other sick, too, but they didn't know it.  Then these Australian people caught that new bird flu virus, and took it home to Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney -- all over the country.  And the people who had the bird flu also got the regular flu, and the genes inside both viruses mixed up and became a very bad virus that people caught real easy.  Once that happened, it was only a matter of time before all of Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia was sick.  Then, the rest of the world got sick."

"Why couldn't anyone stop it?"

"Because too many people got on too many planes, and flew too far, and it just sort of sprang up all at once."

"How many people died, Daddy?"

"I don't know, honey.  They are still counting the dead."

"And that's when Mommy died?"

"Yes, that's when Mommy died.  She was pregnant with your sister Sarah and they both got very sick and died.  A lot of pregnant mommies died in the pandemic.  And you almost died, too."

"Why didn't the people in Indonesia help the rest of the world?  Why did they let Mommy die, Daddy?"

Good hypothetical question. This is what can, and possibly will happen when two worlds collide.  We are watching events unfold slowly, agonizingly, then suddenly and with tremendous speed accelerate in the South Pacific.  Indonesia's inability to face up to its global responsibility and its previous agreements is on a collision course with the fate of the rest of the world.  And the consequences of that collision are too high a price to pay for State reneging on previous agreements and treaties.

So let us now openly, firmly, and with great candor speak of punishing Indonesia economically and in the court of world opinion.  Perhaps we should begin discussing the "quarantine" of Indonesia.  With more documented cluster H2H cases of H5N1 than the rest of the world combined, the Indonesian government would seem to gladly hold the rest of the world hostage.  It is the equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burned. 

It is also the epitome of ingratitude.  When the December, 2004 tsunami struck that embattled, beleaguered nation of 18,000 islands, the rest of the world stepped up and produced emergency support on a level never before seen in peacetime.  Why now, and why suddenly, would the Indonesian government hold the health of the world at bay? 

Let us call it what it is.  Indonesia is committing viral extortion.  The nation and its leaders will be held to account if its tantrums result in the next pandemic. 

It will not be pretty.